The Wrath of the Just (Apocalypse Z)

by Manel Loureiro

  I slid across the cockpit past the wheel and looked at the barometer. The mercury was incredibly low, and it kept falling as I watched.

  I gulped, wishing it were a nightmare. I never thought I’d witness a barometric crash—especially hundreds of miles from the nearest port, in an old sailboat with beaten-up rigging.

  “What the hell is that, Cap’n?”

  My Master’s certificate made me a seasoned sailor in Prit’s eyes. He didn’t care that the license only authorized me to pilot small vessels, or that I’d never been more than a few miles from shore.

  “Not sure, Prit,” I said as I turned and hastily started furling the jib. “If it’s what I think it is, we have a big problem on our hands.”

  “How big?” the Ukrainian asked as he helped me shorten sail.

  “Prit, this is serious.”

  Lucia peered out through the hatch wide-eyed, watching the wall of clouds race toward us.

  “We could be dead in a couple of hours,” I said quietly.

  3

  Had that supercell blown in when the world was still inhabited, the Hurricane Center would’ve tracked every moment of it. Someone would have consulted the Center’s list of names and baptized it. Having a name made it easier to track and allowed news reporters to add drama when the hurricane made landfall, as if it were an erratic, destructive, evil person rather than a low-pressure center. But no one was around to do any of that. So let’s call it Edna. Not a bad name.

  When Edna finally touched down at Casablanca, nobody witnessed the devastation of that city or how Edna leveled what little was still standing and buried thousands of Undead in the ruins. And no one witnessed the fury she unleashed two hundred miles offshore. No one but three people.

  4

  “Watch out, Prit!” I shouted as a wave the size of a two-story building crashed into the Corinth II’s battered hull. The rigging moaned and the mast bent dangerously to starboard. The cabin was completely submerged. I was sure the boat would capsize.

  I wiped the saltwater out of my eyes and tried to make out the bow. Two seconds before, the Ukrainian had been there, struggling with the foresail as it flogged in the wind. As blasts of water sprayed in all directions, I finally spotted Pritchenko. He was wrapped in a rain slicker, clinging to a lifeline, coughing and gasping like a drowning dog. He’d been hurled against the mast, but his life jacket had cushioned the blow. If the water had dragged him a foot on either side of the mast, he’d have been tossed overboard.

  “You OK, Prit? Answer me, dammit!” I cupped my hands to project my voice, but although he was just ten feet away, the wind was howling so loud he couldn’t hear me. He must’ve guessed my question, and he gave me a thumbs-up.

  The hurricane whipped us around mercilessly. We nearly drowned a dozen times. Even brand-new right out of the shipyard, the sailboat wasn’t built to withstand wind gusts that strong, but the Corinth II rode the monster waves admirably.

  Two hours into the storm, the halyard that held up the jib broke with a shriek and flew off like a flapping witch’s cape. After that, we battled the storm with just a ragged piece of mainsail left, trying to stay ahead of waves that threatened to swallow us. My arms were stiff from gripping the wheel for so long. Our only chance for survival was to steer with the wind and waves directly astern.

  Each time one of those monsters broke over the deck, the boat slowly climbed the curved surface of that wave, topped by swirling, dirty foam. There, the wind pounded the entire hull, sending the boat racing to the crest. Then thousands of tons of water, moving at top speed, thundered as the boat rushed down the other side, its bow pointing into the hollow between two giant waves. When it reached the bottom, it was held tight between two giant waves, and, for a few seconds, the wind stopped blowing. Then the next wave lifted the Corinth II, and the cycle started all over again. It lasted for hours.

  I could see only one way this could end—a treacherous wave would turn the boat a few degrees to port or starboard and point the boat straight down into the hollow. When the next wave struck, the boat would capsize.

  An ominous creaking shook me out of my gloomy thoughts. A small crack the width of a pencil appeared along the mast. It hadn’t been there a second before. Every time the boat reached the top of a wave, the crack got longer and wider. The mast could last only a couple minutes before it broke completely.

  “Prit! Prit!” I yelled, flapping my arms and pointing to the mast. “Cut all lines and rigging!”

  At first the Ukrainian looked confused; then the gravity of the situation hit him. If the mast was still tied to the boat by the braided steel shrouds when it broke and fell overboard, it would drag all the rigging with it and form a giant sea anchor. The Corinth II would lose all maneuverability, and we’d drown in seconds.

  Prit wasn’t a born sailor, but he was a fast learner. His quick reflexes had kept him alive through all the madness while billions of people died. He grabbed the nearest sail and, with his rigging knife, attacked the sheets and halyards that attached the sail to the spar, then struggled to release the steel cables. The veins in his neck bulged as he levered the knife blade. Even in the gusting wind, I could hear the growl he let out when the end of his knife broke off.

  “It’s no use!” he shouted, waving his broken knife. “I can’t get the damn thing loose!”

  I froze. We were dead. Totally fucking dead.

  A fist hit me in the back. Still gripping the wheel, I turned and saw Lucia. She’d come on deck, wearing a life jacket, like we were, but no rain slicker. Rain and waves had drenched her in seconds, but that hadn’t fazed her. Her eyes glowed with a fierce determination to stay alive.

  “Try this!” she shouted in my ear as she held out a long heavy object.

  I grabbed hold of it as best I could. It was one of the HK assault rifles on board. It would be hard to pull this off, but I didn’t have any better ideas.

  “You’ll have to do it! I have to keep us on course! You shoot out the backstay, then pass the rifle to Prit so he can do the same at the bow!” I coughed as I swallowed mouthful after mouthful of saltwater as the boat’s cockpit flooded.

  Lucia nodded and steadied her right arm on the rail, above the wheel. The wind whipped straight into her face, driving rain and saltwater into her eyes.

  “Stay calm, honey, stay calm,” I muttered, more to myself than to her.

  We were at the top of a huge wave when alarming sounds came from the mast. Pieces of carbon fiber peeled off lengthwise, leaving a hole in the mast as wide as my finger. The rigging howled and threatened to collapse. The sailboat heeled sharply as it rode the crest of the wave. With a roar, it rushed down the slope in a waterfall of foam.

  For a couple of seconds, the wind stopped. The Corinth II was protected in the thirty-foot-high gap between two huge waves. All was surreally calm. I could plainly hear the raindrops falling onto the deck. That lull was what Lucia had been waiting for. She calmly slung the HK over her shoulder, aimed at the mount holding the backstay to the hull, and pulled the trigger.

  The HK sprang to life in Lucia’s hands, though she could hardly control its powerful recoil. A string of holes appeared in the rear deck and pieces of teak, fiberglass, and hot metal rained down on us. Two of the bullets hit the spot where the stay was attached to the hull. When the bullets tore into the steel cable, drawn taut by the enormous power of the wind in the sail, it snapped like a twig and unraveled before our eyes.

  “Look out!” I let go of the wheel and shoved Lucia to the ground. I fell on her as the cable split apart over my back with a snap and the pieces lashed out like whips.

  The torn end of the backstay flew past the spot where Lucia’s head had been seconds before and crashed against the porthole, sending huge teak splinters and broken glass flying, and breaking the cabin door. The cable rose in the air, shaking like an angry cobra, and crossed to the other side of the mast, where
it tore off part of the storm sail we’d hoisted up. Then I realized Pritchenko wouldn’t need to cut the forestay. The hurricane had solved that problem for us.

  As the boat perched sideways on the crest of a wave, an enormous gust hit us and we witnessed a sight few sailors have seen and lived to tell about. The mast of the Corinth II, weakened after hours in the storm, finally surrendered. With a crunch that set my teeth on edge, the crack gaped wide like a dark mouth and burst, splattering the deck with carbon-fiber pieces. The mast rose into the air, sucked up by the hurricane. The bow mast hung in the air for a few seconds, tied to it by the other shroud, like a strange X made by a crazed carpenter. With a jolt, the other shroud ripped, amid the swirling rain, and the mast fell into two gigantic waves that passed us on the right. We were safe by a hair. But the situation was still grim.

  “Better get inside!” I howled over the wind. “There’s nothing more we can do up here!”

  “Like hell!” Pritchenko snapped as he helped me to my feet. “If I’m gonna drown, I wanna be outside—not entombed in this tub.”

  “Prit . . .” I clenched my fists. The Ukrainian could be very stubborn. “Get the hell down there. It’s too dangerous to be on deck!”

  “I’m not moving from this spot!”

  “Get down there, you stubborn Russky!”

  “I said no! And I’m Ukrainian, not Russian!”

  Lucia, who had retreated below, poked her head through the shattered cabin door. The look on her face told us something was wrong.

  “There’s two inches of water in the cabin,” she said, trying to control the fear in her voice. “We’re sinking.”

  That’s just what we need, I thought. The old hull must’ve developed a hairline crack after years of neglect and exposure to the sun. And a little bubble of air hidden in the hull must’ve broken through the fiberglass. During the storm, that crack had grown without warning. Water was leaking in below the waterline. I didn’t know how fast, but in minutes, hours, or days—if you were a real sailor, you could figure that out, asshole—the boat was done for.

  A sailboat with no mast and a leak who-knew-how-big in the worst storm I’d ever seen. Fabulous. Fucking great. I didn’t need the Undead to drag me to my death. I could do it without their help. And take everyone with me.

  “Is it true?” Prit asked, with a chill in his voice. “We’re sinking?”

  “No,” I lied. “Water must’ve leaked in through a broken porthole. Just to be safe, get the extra bilge pump.”

  “I’ll get it,” Lucia said.

  I grabbed my girl’s hands for a second. I saw fear in her eyes, but also a deep serenity born out of so much suffering over all those months. If we were going to die, Lucia would calmly stare Death in the eye—and spit in its face too.

  I knew I had to tell Prit the truth. The Ukrainian needed to know that the boat could sink at any minute. But my old pal had figured it out from the look in my eyes.

  “We’re screwed, right?”

  I didn’t answer. My gaze was glued to the horizon, at the terrifying spot where water and sky indistinguishably meshed. I’d lost track of time, but it must’ve been almost midnight. Bursts of foam and black waves made it hard to see anything. The boat was bouncing around so much that I couldn’t fix my eyes on one point. But, for one moment, I thought I saw something not too far away. I rubbed my eyes and tried to spot it again. After a moment, as the Corinth II rode another wave to towering heights, I saw it again. I had no doubt.

  Less than half a nautical mile downwind, I saw a green light.

  5

  I took a few deep breaths to calm my wildly beating heart. That green light could mean just one thing.

  “What is it?” Prit asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

  “What do you see out there?” I pointed to the spot on the horizon. “Do you see a flashing green light?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?

  “Wait . . . There! See it?”

  “I’ll be damned! It is a light! Where the hell’s it coming from?”

  “It’s gotta be the signal from a ship!” I said. I could barely contain my excitement. “And judging from how high up it is, the ship’s huge.”

  “How huge?”

  “Can’t say for sure, but a lot bigger than our puny sailboat.” I tried to turn the wheel, but it barely moved.

  “What do we do?” Lucia blurted out. I sensed hope in her voice. She’d come back on deck with a wet and angry Lucullus in her arms.

  “For now, hope our boat keeps moving toward the light. When we get closer, we’ll send up a flare. Then we have to find a way to get off this wreck and onto the ship without drowning.”

  “We don’t know who’s on it,” Pritchenko observed grimly. “Could be a patrol from Tenerife sent to arrest us. Or a boat full of Undead, adrift for months.”

  “A boat full of Undead would’ve run aground a long time ago,” I replied as I tried to steer the Corinth II toward the light. “At this point, I’d climb back aboard that Russian tub, the Zaren Kibish, even with its crew of armed lunatics.”

  The Ukrainian nodded with a wry smile. He knew our situation was desperate. Reaching the mysterious ship was our only hope.

  The next five minutes seemed like an eternity. Each time we crested a wave, our eyes scanned the horizon for the light, but in that short time we’d lost track of it.

  I briefly toyed with the idea that we’d been hallucinating. Then a more chilling thought popped into my head. If that gale had blown us just thirty feet from the mystery ship, we’d never see it. If we saw the red light on the ship’s port side, we’d know we’d passed right by. In that wind and with no mast, turning around was out of the question.

  Suddenly, a huge wave struck the side of the boat, sending freezing black water over the deck. The boat lingered a moment at the top of the next wave, but when it started down the other side, it spun sharply. We were going to capsize.

  “Get ready to jump!” I shouted, my throat raw from saltwater and yelling.

  Suddenly, the spinning stopped. The boat was at the bottom of the trough between two waves. The huge crest had swept us farther away, across the horizon. The next giant wave came roaring toward us. The wheel spun wildly and the boat rocked from side to side. Then the wind died down as if by magic.

  “What the hell?” Prit asked.

  “Not sure, but I think we’re in the eye of the hurricane.”

  “Look!” The fear in Lucia’s voice made my heart clench.

  When I looked where she was pointing, I was stunned.

  Fifty feet away, the huge bow of a tanker blocked out the black sky. It was headed full speed right for the Corinth II’s fragile hull.

  “They’ll roll right over us!”

  There was nothing we could do. Our boat was adrift. The rudder was probably gone, the auxiliary engine was out of fuel, and we had no time to maneuver. The behemoth tanker couldn’t see its bow from its bridge, much less a little sailboat in its path. They’d never spot us; in the storm, we were invisible to radar.

  The giant’s keel parted the sea in crests like foam-covered murky-green mountains. One of them rolled into the Corinth II’s battered hull and shook her like a twig in a stream. We were so close to the tanker that we could see the rivets, dents, and weld marks on its hull. As the tanker bore down on us, the wall of water the tanker pushed forward, along with a gust of wind, turned our boat with excruciating slowness and saved us from being crushed.

  We still had a chance, but we had to act fast. I turned to Prit, who stared, slack-jawed, as the massive vessel passed no more than five feet from us.

  “Prit, find the flare gun and send up a flare!”

  The Ukrainian snapped out of his stupor and held up the gun he’d brought with him from the cabin. He raised it over his head and pulled the trigger. The flare shot out
with a hiss and exploded, bathing the entire scene in bright red light.

  As the flare drifted down, tied to its parachute, I leapt into the cabin. The once-cozy cabin was now in shambles, flooded with cold, ankle-deep water. Oil, food, navigational charts, and papers sloshed around. I was pretty sure I knew where the leak was, but there was no way to fix it. In one corner of the room, Lucia clutched the cat, looking at me expectantly.

  “How do you propose we get on that thing?” she asked in an astonishingly calm voice.

  “Don’t know yet, but first we have to keep them from leaving without us.”

  I grabbed one of our two spearguns and slung it across my back. Ignoring Lucia’s incredulous look, I dug around in the locker for the strongest sail. After I’d found it, I looked for its line and tied it to the end of the spear. It was crude, but it might work.

  “What’s that?”

  “A guide wire, or something like it,” I yelled as I rushed back on deck.

  By then the tanker had advanced nearly half its length. Rising as high as an eight-story building, it sheltered the sailboat from the wind and waves that pounded its other side. I watched stunned as the Corinth II bobbed gently in that small oasis of calm, still lit by the red flare. A few feet away, at the edge of the flare’s light, the protective barrier created by the tanker ended and the sea rose up furiously.

  We only had one chance. I aimed the speargun up toward the deck of the tanker, nearly invisible in the black night. I did some quick calculations. It was the most powerful speargun available, but it had to travel a very long, very steep distance. Add to that the weight of the rope and . . .

  Fuck it! Take a deep breath, and shoot! The annoying voice in my head nagged me. If you don’t hook this tanker, you’re dead. Their propellers will suck you under and make mincemeat out of you. If not, the storm will finish you off. This is your only chance.

  “Shut the fuck up, smart-ass!” I muttered, clenching my jaw.